ComSonics Employee Owners Work With Ford to Speed Production of Airon Ventilators for Coronavirus Patients
Cable Connections to Help With Ford Ventilator Initiative
Our employee owners at Cable Connections are honored to be tasked with the production of over 50,000 wire harness assemblies for ventilators being used to help save lives due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
People Are Our Priority
ComSonics is a 100% employee owned corporation with roots stretching to the late 1960’s, when Dr. Warren Braun founded the company in the basement of his Harrisonburg, Virginia home. Dr. Braun may have applied his entrepreneurial and engineering fingerprint to the company’s underlying purpose, but he also set a precedent in our company culture when he began pioneering ownership for his employees through the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP). Dr. Braun started transferring ownership to employees in 1975 making ComSonics one of the oldest ESOP’s in the United States. He would often say, “I believe in people. I’ve always believed in people”.
This sentiment still rings true nearly 50 years later as we continue to carry the belief in our people with us in our daily corporate values. Because each employee has a personal stake in the company, our owners go the extra mile in their work. The key to fulfilling our mission of excellence is in our team of employee owners who are highly skilled and dedicated to the strictest standards of quality. With these standards, we continue to maintain a reputation of reliability and resourcefulness. Our highest priority has always been our people, and in a time of crises the safety of our people and the public is our greatest concern.
Ford Ventilator Initiative
Coronavirus is sweeping worldwide like wildfire, creating an unprecedented demand for medical equipment. ComSonics is fully committed to fighting the spread of COVID-19, and we are acting with urgency in doing our part to support our heroic healthcare workers. This pandemic does not discriminate, it is affecting us all, but we remain steadfast and continue to do what we can to aid those impacted by this global health emergency.
Cable Connections, one of ComSonics’ manufacturing arms based in Norcross, Georgia, is a full service, specialty cable harness assembly manufacturer. With the current demand for medical equipment being an industry-wide challenge, Cable Connections has been asked to work together with Ford to assist in the production of a simplified version of Airon’s existing ventilator design to support patients with respiratory failure or difficulty breathing caused by COVID-19. We’re moving forward quickly, and Ford is expecting to produce 50,000 ventilators within the next 100 days. Cable Connections will be furnishing the 50,000 wire harnesses that will be applied to each ventilator.
It’s encouraging to see multiple manufacturing companies coming together so quickly in order to address the current challenges, and urgently working to produce this life-saving technology. These are trying times, and to be part of this innovation is truly humbling. ComSonics is proud to serve in this collaboration with Ford. “This is truly the best of America!” said Bret Harrison, ComSonics CEO, on Ford’s conversion of their automotive manufacturing in support of this humanitarian endeavor.
The ComSonics team is working to use its manufacturing capabilities and expertise to help the United States solve its current most pressing issue. By helping to produce this ventilator we can help health care workers save lives, and that’s our number one priority.
More on Cable Connections
First established in 1988, Cable Connections was founded for the purpose of manufacturing top-quality cable assemblies and wire harnesses for industries who need them. With our proven process executed by a stellar team of professionals, Cable Connections’ employee owners proudly build products and provide services to the following industries; aerospace, cable/broadband, communications, computing, defense, medical, meteorology, public safety, power monitoring and rail. From the beginning, we have held to a creed of excellence in all aspects of our business, from quality workmanship to stellar customer service—a creed which is largely responsible for our overwhelming success to date. Cable Connections of GA, was acquired in 2015 to further enhance and compliment ComSonics’ manufacturing offering. ComSonics’ manufacturing endeavors are AS9001 certified, ISO 9001 certified, ITAR registered and SAM registered.
Our Team’s Response to Coronavirus
ComSonics is grateful for the efforts of our employee owners who are working hard to maintain operations and increase production of supplies necessary to assist those in need. We are continuing to act in real time and taking additional actions to help keep all of our people safe and help limit the spread of the coronavirus in communities where we live and work. We continue to prioritize the safety of our people and do all we can to support them. To reduce risk and foster safety in all of our locations, including our manufacturing environments, ComSonics is closely monitoring and following health and wellness guidance from global and national health experts, encouraging remote work when possible, implementing social distancing and robust protocols for cleaning in our facilities.
Bret Harrison, ComSonics CEO
As the impact of COVID-19 continues to grow in magnitude, some struggle for life and health, while others struggle monetarily due to mandatory closings and need for social distancing. I like many of you look forward to the day when we can again shake hands, bump knuckles or give an occasional hug to a good friend. Those days will return…although no one can say exactly when this virus will be defeated.
During this period of continued uncertainty, I remain thankful for ComSonics’ status as an essential communications and manufacturing business and the courage of our employees as we carry forward. I am proud of the efforts shown across our five locations to social distance, alternate work schedules, work creatively, maintain clean work environments, stay home when sick and exercise maximum personal hygiene.
God bless and stay healthy.